June,
by Leandro Bassano
Dear George,
The other day I ran across
a Gallup poll that asked Americans to pick their favorite month of the
year. There wasn’t a clear frontrunner, but several months were bunched
together at the top. May was the favorite of 14% of respondents, followed
by October (13%), and then a tie between June and December (12% each).
May and October are definitely excellent months, and Santa certainly elevates December,
but I personally think June stands out from the rest. Traditionally it’s
the end of the school year and the beginning of summer vacation. It has
the longest days of the year, the rain has receded, and the weather is warm and
pleasant (and not yet stifling). You might see bluebirds in the front
yard. The flowers and trees are all in bloom, the swimming and camping
seasons are in full sway, and romance is in the air. This June the
Warriors and Cavaliers are in the NBA finals. All in all, it’s hard to
imagine a better month. Here are still more reasons why.
Love,
Dave
Biggest and best. We know that June is number one for
Junebugs and cicadas. Some other things for which June is the biggest and
best month of the year are:
Most weddings
(15) (Note: numbers in parentheses refer to sources listed at end)
Unlimited sports to watch
(NBA Finals, Stanley Cup Finals, U.S. Open in men’s golf, French Open,
Wimbledon, major league baseball, FIFA World Cup soccer, the Belmont Stakes,
etc.) (5)
Record-setting hours of
sunshine in Sacramento, CA (407 hours in June — the most in the world) (4)
Car sales at their peak
(14)
Also cyber attacks
(3)
Best month for Caribbean
vacations (14)
Best time to buy lingerie
or laptops (14)
Farmers’ biggest sales of
their products (hogs, eggs, fruits & vegetables, etc.) (13)
Pet holidays. June isn’t just for human beings. Our
sheepdogs always perked up in June because, with longer and sunnier days, we
began taking more walks in the neighborhood and going on more outings to area parks.
June, fittingly enough, is a major month for pet holidays and
observances. Here are some of the best known ones.
June 1-30. National
Pet Preparedness Month
June 1-30. Social
Petworking Month
June 1-30. Adopt a
Shelter Cat Month
June 4. Hug Your Cat
Day
June 5-11. Pet
Appreciation Week
June 11. Missing
Mutts Awareness Day
June 12. World Pet
Memorial Day
June 17. Ugliest Dog
Day
June 20. Take Your
Dog to Work Day
June 21. National Dog
Party Day
June 24. Cat World
Domination Day (2, 8)
Billboard hit singles. I think June was most important when
I was a teenager because that’s when I spent the most time outdoors socializing
with peers. While I can’t recall all the lyrics, I can hum all the tunes
for the Billboard Number One Hit Singles for June during those years.
1950: The Third Man Theme
(Guy Lombardo)
1951: How High the Moon
(Les Paul & Mary Ford)
1952: Kiss of Fire (Georgia
Gibbs)
1953: The Song from Moulin
Rouge (Percy Faith)
1954: Little Things Mean a
Lot (Kitty Kallen)
1955: Cherry Pink (and
Apple Blossom White) (Perez Prado)
1956: The Wayward Wind
(Gogi Grant) (16)
Paul Bunyan Day. June is important to Yoopers because the
28th is the celebration of National Paul Bunyan Day. Paul Bunyan, of
course, is the giant lumberjack whose exploits, aided by his faithful companion
Babe the Blue Ox, created the logging industry in the U.P., Wisconsin, the
Great Northwest, and most other places. It took five storks to deliver
the newborn infant Paul to his parents, and they needed 24 cows to provide
enough milk for baby Paul to drink. Paul Bunyan created Lake Michigan and
the other Great Lakes to provide watering holes for Babe, and it’s said that he
dug out the Grand Canyon by walking through and dragging his axe behind him.
When camping in Oregon, Paul piled rocks on top of his campfire to put it
out, and that rock pile became Mount Hood. I heard somewhere that Paul
Bunyan created the Menominee River by scratching a line with his big toe
between Iron Mountain and Menekaunee so that Babe would have a path to follow
from the iron mines to the pristine waters of Green Bay. (12)
Tennis birthdays. My theory is that tennis players are
likely to have June birthdays because June is the start of the tennis season
for kids. Just as I thought, a surprising number of Grand Slam winners
are June births. Here are their birthdays (along with their number of
grand slam titles in parentheses).
Don Budge, June 13, 1915
(6)
Doris Hart, June 2, 1925
(6)
Bjorn Borg, June 6, 1956
(15)
Steffi Graf, June 14, 1969
(22)
Lindsay Davenport, June 8,
1976 (3)
Venus Williams, June 17,
1980 (13)
Justine Henin, June 1, 1982
(7)
Kim Clijsters, June 8, 1983
(4)
Rafael Nadal, June 3, 1986
(14) (1, 10)
June movies. Filled with romance and new beginnings, June is
a frequent theme of movies, songs, and works of art. Here are a few
movies we’ve seen (or might have seen) that have June in the title: June Bridge
(1948), D-Day the Sixth of June (1956), Happy Birthday, Wanda June (1971),
Walter and June (1983), Henry & June (1990), June (2004), June in January
(2004), Junebug (2005), Six Days in June (2007), June 9 (2008), A Moment in
June (2008), Hopelessly in June (2011), June, Adrift (2014)
(9)
June History in Santa Cruz, CA. Though my sister Vicki and
brother-in-law George were yet to arrive, June 3rd, 1956, is memorialized in
California history as the day that Santa Cruz city officials announced a total
ban on rock and roll at public gatherings, calling the music “Detrimental to
both the health and morals of our youth and community.” (7)
June in our lives. June has probably been the most
significant month in our immediate family’s personal lives. Here are some
highlights.
June 1955: Katja graduated
from Girls’ High in Philadelphia, and I graduated from Menominee HS, both of us
headed for Antioch College in Yellow Springs.
June 1958: Katja left for a
year abroad in Besancon and Vienna, and I set out for a summer in San Francisco
as an aspiring fiction writer.
June 1960: We both
graduated from Antioch, Katja in French, me in Psychology.
June 1962: Having finished
our second year of graduate school in Ann Arbor, Katja and I began a
summer-long camping road trip to the west coast and the Seattle’s World Fair.
June 1963, June 1964: We
spent two summers in Bethel, Maine, as research assistants on a project dealing
with identity change in NTL training groups (T-groups).
June 1964: Katja received
her M.A. in French from UM.
June 1967: I taught my
first Social Psychology summer school course as a new faculty member at UC.
June 1968: I received my
Ph.D. in Social Psychology from UM.
June 1969: Six months
pregnant, Katja finished up the school year as a French teacher at Finneytown
HS.
June 1973: I returned to
Bethel to do research on stages of group development.
June 1975: Our son J
completed kindergarten at Clifton School.
June 1981: J participated
in his first Jr. Met tennis tournament at Cincinnati and the districts at
Charleston, West Virginia.
June 1986: Katja received
her M.S.W. from UC and began working at the Cincinnati Association for the
Blind.
June 1991: J graduated with
a Sociology B.A. from Columbia University in NYC.
June 1999: J received his
M.D. degree from LSU Medical School in New Orleans.
June 2008: I taught my last
summer school class before retiring in January, 2009.
June 2012: Katja retired
from the Cincinnati Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired.
June 2014: Our
grandchildren, L and V, graduated from kindergarten in New Orleans.
Right now it’s sunny and 74
degrees in Cincinnati. I’m going to go out, take my daily stroll up
Ludlow Avenue, and get some Fitbit points. A very happy June to all.
Love,
Dave
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